About the High Line

The High Line is a new public park, built on an elevated 1930s rail structure located on Manhattan's West Side. It runs from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to 34th Street. The first section of the High Line opened to the public in June 2009. The High Line is property of the City of New York, and is maintained and operated by the non-profit Friends of the High Line, in partnership with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation.

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The turn-out of High Line supporters for Monday’s Eastern Rail Yards Public Forum was great: more than 200 people rallied at Midtown’s Red Cross in favor of preserving the entire High Line, including the Spur over 10th Avenue. Supporters wore red “Save the Spur” T-shirts and held signs during a presentation by The Related Companies, the designated developer at the rail yards.

The Spur, a portion of the High Line that crosses 10th Avenue at 30th Street, is still clearly under threat of demolition. Almost every speaker voiced strong support for preserving the entire High Line at the rail yards, including elected leaders US Representative Jerrold Nadler and New York State Assemblymember Dick Gottfried. Related gave no concrete answer as to why the spur would need to be torn down, only that the spur is “large and dark.”

On a promising note, the building on the Western Rail Yards that was previously shown blocking the High Line’s western views was not in the plans shown on Monday night.

With your help, we will continue to put pressure on the developer, the City, the MTA, and Governor Paterson. Please stay tuned to our E-mail Newsletter for updates on what you can do to help us Save the Spur.

Thanks to everyone who came out on Monday night to show that the Spur, like the rest of the historic High Line structure, must be preserved and integrated into the rail yards development.

It’s not too late to join us and Alex Feleppa, director of horticulture for the Horticultural Society of New York, for a naturalist walk on the rail yards section of the High Line. The walks are this Saturday, June 7 (there are three sessions.)

We’re not usually able to bring people up to the High Line, so this is a rare chance to see it in its natural state.

Space is extremely limited and there are only a few slots left. Once they are full, you will be able to add yourself to the wait list, and we’ll contact you if there’s a cancellation.

The cost is $10 for members and $20 for non-members. Of course, you can always become a member to get early notice and discounts on programs like this in the future.

Another big Rail Yards announcement this morning: the Related Companies have stepped in where Tishman Speyer dropped out earlier this month.

Related’s original proposal included the preservation of the entire High Line, including the spur over Tenth Avenue and the entire 30th Street section, which might have been demolished in Tishman Speyer’s plan. Though we haven’t seen the terms of their current agreement with the MTA, we hope they’ll stick with full preservation, fulfilling the first, and most important, of our principles for the High Line at the Rail Yards.

The MTA met today with Tishman Speyer. Despite the best efforts of both sides, a final agreement could not be reached. The MTA has now re-entered discussions with other interested developers and remains committed to timely development of these unique and valuable parcels of land on Manhattan’s Far West Side.

It’s widely believed that the most likely developer right now is the partnership of the Durst Organization and Vornado Realty Trust.

Negotiations between the MTA and Tishman Speyer have collapsed, according to the MTA, following a request from the developer to change the terms under which the project would be financed, as well as the project schedule. An agreement on the 26-acre site could not be reached.

Tishman Speyer was selected to develop the rail yards last month, after an eight-month bid process. Theirs was the high bid, at $1.004 billion, beating out the only other major contender, a joint partnership between Durst and Vornado.

Tishman Speyer was reportedly apprehensive about closing on the Eastern Rail Yards before the Western Rail Yards were rezoned, a process requiring public review and City approval on several levels. A rezoning is necessary for the developer to complete its massive high-density residential and commercial plan, and adds another variable to a project already troubled with the recent loss of an anchor tenant and an exceedingly complex financing plan.

A spokesman for Tishman Speyer insisted that the developer would continue to negotiate with the MTA to see if the differences could be worked out. A meeting is set for Monday, but the MTA is reportedly considering reopening negotiations with at least one of the four other developers who originally submitted bids.

… And so can you! There are still a few spots remaining for the remaining Sketching the High Line classes with artist Ann DeVere.

Last Saturday was the first class, and it was a really wonderful experience. Ann led us through a series of warm-up exercises to get our creative juices flowing, and then we sat for few longer sketches, observing and recording the unique viewpoint we had of the High Line and its surroundings.

The indispensable WPA Guide to New York City — a neighborhood-by-neighborhood survey from the the 1930’s Federal Writer’s Project — is one of my favorite sources of NYC nerdistry.

The chapter on Hell’s Kitchen reveals some of the colorful characters that once inhabited the area around the West Side rail yards- “a district that bears one of the most lurid reputations in America.”

It seems the New York Central Railroad– which built and operated the High Line– was largely responsible for taming the lawlessness of Hell’s Kitchen.

“Hell’s Kitchen acquired its reputation as one of the toughest areas in the city shortly after the Civil War. According to Herbert Asbury, who recorded many exploits of Hell’s Kitchen hoodlums in his book The Gangs of New York, the section deserved its notoriety. Its name, originally applied to a dive near Corlears Hook on the East Side, came from the Hell’s Kitchen Gang, organized in 1868 by Dutch Heinrichs. Although this gang specialized in raids on the Thirtieth Street yard of the Hudson River Railroad (now part of the New York Central), its repertoire included extortion, breaking-and-entering, professional mayhem, and highway robbery. It merged with the Tenth Avenue Gang, which had held up and robbed a Hudson River Railroad express train, and for decades terrorized the neighborhood. From its ranks rose the desperadoes who organized the Hudson Dusters and the Gophers.

“After the decline of the Hell’s Kitchen Gang, the Gophers achieved hegemony in the Hell’s Kitchen underworld. They made their headquarters in saloons such as one on “Battle Row” (Thirty-ninth Street between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues) operated by “Mallet” Murphy, who won his pseudonym by bludgeoning disputatious customers with a mallet. Leaders of the Gophers included “Happy Jack” Mulraney, “Goo Goo” Knox, “Stumpy” Malarkey, and “One Lung” Curran. Besides the Gophers, whose membership numbered nearly five hundred men, several smaller affiliated gangs such as the Gorillas, the Rhodes Gang, and the Parlor Mob waged consistant warfare against what was left of law and order in the neighborhood.

“Gangster rule of Hell’s Kitchen continued until 1910, when a special police force organized by the New York Central Railroad launched a counter-offensive. Clubbing, shooting, and arresting indiscriminately, they soon had most of the Gopher leadership in hospitals or behind bars and a majority of the lesser lights in flight. Remnants of the mobs functioned throughout the Prohibition era, but the backbone of Hell’s Kitchen gangsterdom had been effectively broken.”